Kepner

I think it is important to remember that IU throughout all of its history has never and probably will never be the school that brings in a class full of 5* players. Knight never had a class like that. No one who has coached at IU has. I know everyone is going to comment back to my post with the "well good coaching is the reason" and blah blah blah. If you play good team basketball, it doesn't matter if you have a roster full of 5 star players. Look at "The Movement". 3 players in the top 100 , all 4 * and only one has actually ever lived up to anything. I know there are tons of schools that bring in huge classes of 5* players every year like Arizona, Duke, UK, UL , etc, but then you have also have to look at schools like Witchita State, Wisconsin, Nebraska (last year), Butler (in years past), VCU ,amongst a ton of other teams that succeed in the tournament and consistently knock off these "blue blood", 5* recruiting monsters. I think team basketball is more important than a group of 5* star talent. I think if we can consistently get a class of mostly 4* players with a 3* and a 5* thrown in, we will be successful. I think we as Indiana fans are just really quick to forget the talent that we have been able to nab the last couple of years. Troy (4 star), Stan Robinson (4 star), JBJ (5 star), Rob Johnson (4  star), and Vonleh (5 star) were all players that were highly recruited and we were able to out recruit anyone else for them.  Other schools with continue to bring in huge classes, but IU will most likely continue to recruit they same way we have been for years, and just try to develop those players.  Side note: I really enjoy going back and seeing some of the players that have been brought in over the years that weren't hardly rated at all and were great players. Players like Roth(3 star), Hulls (3 star), Abel ( 2 star), Sheehey (3 star), Oladipo (3 star), Verdell Jones( 3 star) were all players that were contributors in one way or another on an IU squad. There are also a decent amount of players who were recruited to IU as 3 stars who went onto other programs and were contributors on good teams as well.

It's always intriguing to think about what actually draws recruits, if its success of the program, the coach, the fans, etc. Makes me think back to the end of the Knight era/ Mike Davis era and even Sampson. Players like Mike Conely and Eric Gordon wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with Davis. And then hearing stories about how davis wasn't interested in Conely. Also I live around where Dominic James played high school ball. He really wanted to play for IU but Davis didn't recruit him because he thought he was too small. The Conely story was interesting because if Davis would've been more active with him , we would've had Oden and Conely because Oden wanted to go to IU but wanted to play wherever Conely wanted to. There were a lot of great players in Indiana from the Davis era that simply didn't want to play for him, even though initially Davis had good success

The knock on Vonleh coming in was that he did not talk much out on the court. Crean said before Vonleh even got here was that the thing he needed to work on the most was demanding the ball, then he said it throughout all of last year. Part of the blame can be put on the coaching staff, but if you look back at most of the games last year, Vonleh was being double teamed every time he got the ball because we had no shooting. Vonleh had lots of potential to be great. I personally think another year of school would've done him well but it was writing on the wall that he was going to leave. Even the NBA scouts thought he'd probably come into the NBA and ride the bench and learn this year. Charlotte has already predicted that he will use this year to "learn". He just kind of a left a bad impression on me personally because it came out that he sat out the last few games last year to protect his draft stock.

That whole 2017 AAU team with Scruggs, Wilkes, Gunn, etc are players we need to get. They are THE top AAU team in the nation in their age division. They have offered like 5 kids on the squad and had a few others on unofficial visits

I don't think it had much to do with it cause if you look at it, he could've gone to Vanderbilt because IU is now over signed. He could have definitely played beside Baptiste. Baptiste is more of a true center and Morgan is more of a 3/4

Let's celebrate and appreciate that we got Juwan first

"Near his potential" is the key. I had a huge congo about this with someone else on here, but I just don't see Yogi leaving early unless something HUGE happens with the team.  As a pg especially. The NBA execs will look at the player as an individual (stats) and on how they lead a team. If Yogi puts up wonderful stats, but the team does absolutely terrible, it makes a difference. I love Yogi as a player and I'm a huge supporter of his but I just do not see him leaving early happening whatsoever. If he was guaranteed a spot in the first round I could see it, but as a player you really don't want to be taken in the second round. You don't get a guaranteed contract. A team could choose you and if you don't come to some sort of contract agreement, they still have your rights. 

Just depends on how he scores. He needs to improve his shooting and defense drastically. He is a great athlete and I love to watch him play, but there are a million guys with his size and his athletic ability that are playing in Europe wishing they would've stayed in school longer and are dreaming of the NBA. He could for sure go to the NBA but in order to be up in the lottery or even mid first, he has to shoot better and play better defense. Apart from some highlight reel worthy dunks last year, he didn't really do much else.